1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming device, an image forming device terminal for giving instructions to the image forming device, an image forming system made up of such devices, and a program used in the image forming system, and more particularly, to an image forming device which requests user authentication for the start of printout process, an image forming device terminal (an image formation instructing device) which gives a printout instruction to the image forming device, an image forming system made up of such devices, and a program used in the device making up the image forming system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the image forming device is connected to a plurality of information processing devices (image forming device terminals) by way of a network, and is shared by a plurality of users using the plurality of information processing devices. The image forming device is a digital multifunction peripheral (MultiFunction Peripheral (MFP), a Scan Print Copy (SPC), or All In One (AIO)) having at least two or more functions of a printer, a facsimile, a copying machine, a scanner, and the like. The information processing device (image forming device terminal) is a personal computer (PC), or the like. The image forming device and the information processing device are communicably connected to each other by way of a communication network such as Local Area Network (LAN) and the Internet to configure an image forming system. The image forming system can be formed by connecting one image forming device and one information processing device one-to-one in its minimum configuration. Recently, however, a large-scale image forming system is often being built up in which a plurality of image forming devices and a plurality of information processing devices are connected to each other.
When the user attempts to output a printed material of a desired document using the image forming device in such image forming system, the user uses the information processing device to specify the data file of the relevant document saved in the image forming system, select and specify the image forming device to execute the printout of the relevant document from a plurality of image forming devices in the image forming system, and finally, input an instruction to execute the printout to the information processing device.
The information processing device sends job data described with the specified data file and various setting data related to the printout to the specified image forming device. The image forming device that received the job data executes printing based on the job data. The document printed material is discharged from a paper discharge tray of the image forming device. The user then goes to the image forming device and collects the discharged document printed material.
However, the user is not necessarily nearby the image forming device when the document printed material is discharged from the image forming device. Since the image forming device is shared by a plurality of users, another user might be near the image forming device. Thus, a problem of ensuring information security related to the document printed material discharged from the image forming device arises in the image forming system.
JP 6-183110 A discloses a printing device (printer). Such printing device receives print data from a plurality of host computers connected by way of a network, and executes printing based on the received print data. The print data sent to the printer may contain a password. Thus, when receiving the print data from the computer, the printer determines whether or not a password is contained in the received print data. When determined that the received data contains a password, the printer executes the printout based on the received print data only after confirming that the user has correctly input the password through a user interface of the printer.
The printing device disclosed in JP 6-183110 A executes printing when the password given to the print data is matched with the password input by the user. The relevant printing device ensures information security on the information indicated by the print data in this manner.
The technique disclosed in JP 6-183110 A is a technique in which the printing device requests for a password to be input by the user, that is, user authentication as a trigger for defining the start of printout, and is not a technique in which the printing device determines whether or not to perform the user authentication serving as a trigger for defining the start of printout for each printout process.
JP 2006-334873 A discloses an image forming device for executing printing in response to a printing instruction from an external device. When the received printing instruction requests to ensure security, the authentication process related to ensuring of security is performed, and the print data related to the printing instruction is acquired only after the authentication process is successfully completed in the image forming device.
The image forming device disclosed in JP 2006-334873 A thus suppresses the volume of the memory necessary for keeping the print data at low level, and ensures information security on the printing process.
Numerous documents related to information security of the image forming system have already been proposed.
The image forming device for performing user authentication through a predetermined user authentication means arranged in the image forming device at the start of execution of the printout as disclosed in JP 6-183110 A is already widely known. The technical methodology adopted in the technique of JP 6-183110 A is an effective methodology for ensuring the user to be near the image forming device when the image forming device actually executes the printout.
However, it is sometimes bothersome for the user to perform user authentication on the predetermined user authentication means arranged in the image forming device to cause the image forming device to actually start the execution of the printout. Thus, in implementation, only when printing out a document where confidentiality is essential, it is performed to perform user authentication using the predetermined user authentication unit and execute the printout.
If a plurality of users shares a data file of a document, the awareness on the importance of confidentiality regarding the document of the data file tends to differ among the users.
In such case, a certain user sufficiently recognizes the importance of confidentially of the data file, and always performs the printout involving user authentication when printing out the data file. However, another user might perform a normal printout when printing out the same data file. The difference in awareness on the confidentiality of the information of the same document among the plurality of users becomes an obstacle in managing the security of the information.